Dinner Party Desert Conundrum

[FarmerJon]

I was thinking of having a dinner party, but at every one i've had before I always seem to run into the same sort of problem...
Starting with a cold or pre prepared starter, and a long cook main course means that I can chill generally with the other guests, but most of the deserts I enjoy/am better at cooking need to be done last minute & take some time. I was looking for some suggestions for deserts which can be mainly prepared in advance can be left during the rest of the meal and finished off very quickly once main course is done. I would seriously appreciate any help

[killgORE]

here is one I made earlier. u can have it



its trifle.. now. Not anyones favourit, but have never heard anyone complain about a standard trifle.

I also found this image...



poor dog.. its called "trifle". WHAT were they thinking ?

[turkster]

Home made icecream and fresh fruit? Simple enough but should go down well at this time of year

[menthel]

lime cheese cake! Crush some ginger nut biscuits, and put as a base in a cake/ flan tin with some melted butter. Grab some limes and juice- quite a few if i remember, and mix with a 50/50 marscapone and whipped cream mix. Serve a few berries on the side. Nice.

[FarmerJon]

Hmmmmm sounds good!! will defo be trying that one out...cheers for the ideas

[Moby-Dick]

Caramelised Oranges

[Nick]

http://forums.hexus.net/forumdisplay.php?f=46

There MUST be something in there that tickles yer fancy!

[FarmerJon]

Cheers

[TeePee]

Make vanilla icecream from scratch and add crushed up malteasers. Easy to make in advance and so, so nice!

[Blub2k]

Strawberries with natural yoghurt mixed with a small amount of vanilla sugar and the top sprinkled with pink madagascan peppercorns, sounds strange, dont crush the pepper the sweet against the pepper is fantastic.

[turkster]

Strawberries with natural yoghurt mixed with a small amount of vanilla sugar and the top sprinkled with pink madagascan peppercorns, sounds strange, dont crush the pepper the sweet against the pepper is fantastic.

Whoa that sounds fun I'll have to try that sometime .

Those pink peppercorns taste rather funny anyway

[stytagm]

This is my all time favorate summer dessert, nice hot, but normally served cold.

Just cook some pastry (shortcrust) in a flan dish (although I actually make it in a sandwich cake tin), slice up some apple very thinly (eating apples, not cooking, or they fall apart), and arrange the slices around the inside of the pastry in a nice pattern.

Then shove the whole lot under a hot grill so the apple slices just start to brown. Then comes the best part.

Take a jar of apricot jam, and gently melt it in a saucepan over a very low heat, you can add a splash of hot water if you want to help it along. Then pour this over the pie to glaze. You'll probably only need half a jar for a smallish pie (20cm).

Delish served hot or cold with cream, custard or ice-cream. It also microwaves very well, so you can serve it hot even if you made it last week. The only tricky part is making sure you don't burn the pastry when you brown the apple under the grill.

Hope this is of use, Andrew.